A tweak has been discovered that lets users expand the variable refresh rate ranges of their AMD FreeSync enabled gaming monitors. The hack essentially works by changing the refresh rate values set up by the monitor manufacturers in the drivers of the monitor. And then creating a new “hacked” driver with new, user defined, maximum and minimum refresh rate values.

What’s AMD FreeSync And Why It Matters

Project FreeSync is AMD’s effort to bring variable refresh rate monitors to market through industry standards and by working with established ASIC and monitor manufacturers. AMD proposed the Adaptive-Sync standard in early 2014 to the VESA body, which has since been adopted and incorporated it into DisplayPort1.2a.

Adaptive-Sync capable monitors solve three distinct issues in games. The first of which is tearing, which occurs whenever the game’s framerate and the refresh rate of the monitor are mismatched. Which is the result of the graphics card processing and drawing frames at a variable rate. No matter how fast a gaming system might be, it will always produce a variable framerate. This is because some frames i.e. in-game images, are very complex and take longer to process and draw than other frames that happen to be less computationally demanding.
The second issue is stuttering and it’s somewhat related to the first. As stuttering can occur if the game’s framerate dips below the refresh rate of the monitor when V-Sync is enabled. V-Sync works by matching the game’s variable framerate to the fixed refresh rate of the monitor by forcing each frame to wait for the next monitor refresh cycle before it is shown on the screen. This is to prevent two frames from being drawn on the screen at once in a single refresh cycle which causes tearing.

The third issue is input-lag, which is the result of that “waiting” period that each frame has to go through before its drawn on the screen when V-Sync is enabled.
So before variable refresh rate monitors had existed, irrespective of whether they were G-Sync or FreeSync enabled. You had to choose between either tearing and stuttering or latency.

FreeSync solves all of these issues by allowing the monitor to draw frames at a variable rate, rather than a fixed rate, most commonly that rate is 60Hz. However there are also limitations to FreeSync as there’s a minimum and maximum refresh rate the monitor can deal with. For example 30Hz to 60Hz, in this case the monitor can draw frames at a framerate between 30 and 60 instantly with no stutter, lag or tear. However, if the framerate exceeds 60 or goes below 30, the monitor reverts back to a fixed refresh rate.

Monitor Hack To Expand the Minimum And Maximum Refresh Rates

The particular hack we’re covering today allows FreeSync monitor users to expand the variable refresh rate range of their monitors, be it by increasing the maximum refresh rate or by lowering the minimum refresh rate. Which would allow for a bigger window, for example 20-90 instead of 30-60- in which the monitor can draw frames instantly.
The hack has been verified to be effective on all FreeSync monitors.